Necessities

This paper provides a review of various measures pertaining to older people used in the 1999 Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) survey and offers suggestions for improvement. Six measurement areas were identified: deprivation; social capital; limitations in activities of daily living; receipt of informal care; receipt of health and social services; and provision of unpaid care.

The Necessities of Life questionnaire examines the public’s perceptions of what are necessities and the importance, or otherwise, attached to services. In this questionnaire, respondents are asked to say which of a range of items and activities they feel are necessities and which might be desirable but are not necessary. Items and activities for adults and, separately, those for children are covered. You can take part in the online version on this website. The questionnaire also asks whether people see a range of local services as essential or not. You can download the questionnaire below.

A trade union analysis has found that the cost of living has been going up faster for poorer than for richer households.

The Trades Union Congress says consumer price index inflation for the poorest 10 per cent of households in February 2012 was 4.1 per cent – compared with 3.6 per cent for middle-income households, and 3.3 per cent for the richest 10 per cent. The poorest households spend a larger proportion of their income on food and utility bills – the prices of which have been rising faster than headline inflation. For example, they spend 17 per cent of their income on food and non-alcoholic beverages, the prices of which rose by 3.7 per cent in February 2012. By contrast, the richest households spend just 10 per cent of their income on food and are therefore less exposed to these rising costs.

Oxfam has published the first results of a new ‘Humankind Index’ for Scotland, designed to measure prosperity through a wider set of indicators than simple gross domestic product. The index involves a weighted set of elements that people say are the most important influences on their ability to live well:

The government’s austerity measures and rising inflation are eating into the budgets of low income families, according to the charity Family Action. The report shows that among families helped by the charity, fuel and food costs were placing family budgets under intense pressure, leaving nothing for parents to save for their children’s future, or for fun activities other children could enjoy such as a school disco.

The current research (PSE: UK) builds on the work of the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey in Britain in 1999, the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey in Northern Ireland in 2002/03 and the Breadline Britain surveys in 1983 and 1990. These surveys developed the consensual method of measuring poverty based on the public perception of necessities.

During that time, deprivation in Britain rose sharply. Looking at those households lacking three or more necessities because they could not afford them:

Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United Kingdom is a major research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Launched in May 2010, two major surveys into the public’s perceptions of necessities and into living standards were carried out in 2012.

The first results were published on 28 March, 2013. More results will be published shortly.

Minimum budget standards aim to establish the budget necessary for different types of households to maintain a minimum standard of living. It does this by determining what it costs to meet minimum standards on food, goods, services, activities and other items – that is, a minimum weekly budget is drawn up that covers the costs of these items based on actual market prices. Those whose incomes fall below this minimum budget are seen to be living in poverty. This approach was taken by Joseph Rowntree in his classic study of poverty in York in 1899, where he set out to establish a minimum budget level for subsistence. The same approach was used by William Beveridge in 1942 to rationalise the proposal for social security levels.

The consensual or ‘perceived deprivation’ approach to measuring poverty follows the deprivation approach to measuring poverty by looking at direct measures of living standards rather than indirect income measures. But here, deprivation is seen in terms of an enforced lack of ‘necessities’ as determined by public opinion.

The 1983 Breadline Britain study pioneered this ‘consensual’ approach to measuring poverty by investigating, for the first time ever, the public’s perceptions of minimum needs:

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PSE:UK is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York working with the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. ESRC Grant RES-060-25-0052.